100 years of rail ferry port Sassnitz/Mukran
Sassnitz/Mukran Eastern Europe hub for German railway Germany’s biggest rail ferry port is celebrating its 100-years jubilee these days. Sassnitz/Mukran auf Rügen is the only Western European port to be equipped with tracks and handling facilities for rail wagons from Finland, Russia and the Baltic countries, which use the broad gauge of 1,520 millimetres. The rail station Mukran offers on a 300-hectares area 40 kilometres of standard gauge tracks and 20 kilometres of broad gauge. “Thus Sassnitz/Mukran is the most western cargo railway station of the Trans-Siberian Railway“, the German railway company announced in a press release. Last year around 56,000 rail wagons passed the port. The wagons are loaded and dispatched in Germany and are transported with the rail ferry to the Russian, Baltic or Finish rail network. All kinds of goods are transported – on particular vehicles, industrial products, food and dangerous goods. Since May 2008 the ferry port serves also as destination railway station of the transport route for tubes for the new gay pipeline through the Baltic Sea. On behalf of Europipe GmbH from Mülheim (Ruhr), DB Schenker Rail transports every week 15 trains loaded with steel pipes to Sassnitz/Mukran. Also high-speed trains of the “Velarus“-type for the Russian railway company RZD are shipped by DB Schenker via Sassnitz/Mukran. In 1909 the history of the Port of Sassnitz/Mukran started when two Swedish railway ferry vessels started operating between Sassnitz and Trelleborg. On 6 July 1909 the first train used the new ferry in the presence of the King of Sweden and the German Emperor. Thus the route was also named “Königslinie” (king’s line). Sassnitz/Mukran played an important role in the trade between the Soviet Union and GDR. In 1986 the new deep water harbour was opened in the region of Mukran. After the reunification and the political changes in Russia the demand for trade ways though the Baltic Sea showed a fierce decline. With an annual gross turnover volume of more then 5 million tons, Sassnitz/Kukran is the third-largest German port in the Baltic Sea today. The catchment area comprises customers with goods flows from Central and Southeastern Europe, for whom regular ferry connections to Sweden (Trelleborg), Lithuania (Klaipeda/Memel), Russia (Baltijsk) and Denmark (Rønne) are available. Since 2005 the German railway company operates its whole eastbound rail ferry traffic via Sassnitz/Mukran. Quelle: Österreichische Verkehrszeitung |